How to Quickly Fill Your Fridge with Probiotic-Rich Cultured Veggies

Cultured vegetables add not only probiotics, but also vitamin-rich vegetables, sour-salty flavor, and intense color to every meal. I don’t consider a meal complete unless it contains some sort of fermented food with live cultures, whether that’s milk kefir, high quality yogurt, kombucha, or fermented vegetables like those shown here.

When I make cultured vegetables, I like to do a big bunch at once. They are very simple to make, and odds and ends of each veggie can be combined at the end to make one jar of special mixed cultured vegetables, with a different flavor each time! Directions here make 2 quarts sauerkraut, 1 quart pickled ginger carrot sticks, 1 quart beet kvass/pickled beets, 1 quart salsa, and a pint of mixed veggies.

Directions for Batch Cultured Vegetables:

Cultured vegetables are very forgiving. I use less salt than Nourishing Traditions calls for, and my ferments are still great, just less salty. Don’t feel like you have to be perfect in this, it’s an art, and about finding what your family likes.

Carrots:

Scrub carrots, remove ends, cut into carrot sticks. Place in a quart jar.

Allow ferments to sit at room temperature for desired length – the amount depends on the amount of sugar in the vegetable (beets and tomatoes are high), and the temperature of your house. I recommend 1-2 days for beet kvass and salsa, 10 or more days for cabbage and carrots, then transferring to the fridge.

The health benefits of probiotics and how they help leaky gut:

Probiotics are becoming better known now, even mainstream doctors are recommending yogurt with live active cultures, or a probiotic supplement, after a course of antibiotics. I see yogurt advertised on TV to help with digestion. These fermented vegetables are full of probiotics, which not only preserve the veggies, but also break down some of the fiber to make the vitamins more easily assimilated, and provide more varieties of friendly bacteria for your health.

Many are starting to question the overuse of antibacterial soaps and too many prescriptions for antibiotics. Too many antibiotics, toxins, and antibacterial products can cause a gut to be leaky. A leaky gut can cause all kinds of health problems, from eczema to mental difficulties, chronic conditions like fibromyalgia, and even food allergies. To learn more about the leaky gut, and what you can do to fix it, click here to sign up for the free Leaky Gut Summit and get your leaky gut quiz, and free 60 minute expert interview!

I took these same steps when I tried my own fermented veggies for the first time from the recipes in your GAPS 30 day intro book. They all ended up totally rancid by the time I opened the jars. Any tips?

I have had fermented veggies from the store. They do have a fresh and spritzy flavor. When I make them and open the jar after the alloted time they are not moldy but smell rancid and spoiled. I’ve heard some people put some kind of weight on the top to keep the veggies under the water. Is the issue that a few pieces of veggies stick out of the water and this causes them to go bad?

I have had store bought fermented veggies. They are spritzy and fresh. When I open my ferment jars they are rancid and stinky. I can’t even get my face up to it. Have bad bacteria taken over the good? I’ve read that some people put some kind of weight on the top of the veggies before closing. Is the issue that a few pieces of cabbage stick out of the water?

Do you recommend a culture starter such as the one sold by Body Ecology? I have a little bit of the “fear factor” to get over and want to do it right the first time so I don’t have to throw anything out. Thanks so much!

I always thought that whey had to be used to ferment vegetables (as Sally Fallon describes in her book Nourishing Traditions). If fermenting can be done with just salt, then what is the purpose of using whey?

It has starter cultures in it, I’m using pickle juice instead here. In Nourishing Traditions Sally says to use double the salt if you’re omitting whey, but I find that makes the veggies way too salty for us, and I experimented with using less while we were dairy free.

This looks so much simplier than I expected :-)
Following on from Karen’s question above; if whey has starter cultures then does adding only salt have the same desired affect that we hope to get from fermented foods? Will the salt version be the same as the whey version? Perhaps you can elaborate on why whey, please? Thanks

I would also like to know if the salt version be the same as using whey. I have only used salt to make cultured veggies, and especially is a little too salty for making beet Kvass even just using 1 tbl. per quart jar.

Hi. Great post! I just made the beets recipe and was wondering, how do you know when it’s done? I know you said 2 days but are there any indicators that it’s done? I’ve never done this before but have always wanted to ferment my own veggies. Thanks again for the great info!

Hi, this is a great DIY for fermented veggies. I have found that you must be sure that all your tools and jars be sterile and all the veggies super washed and clean. If there is any kind of contamination, the jars will spoil. I leave lids off also, and put a new piece of nylon hose (knee highs) over the top of jar to keep stuff out along with a ziplok bag filled with water down in the mouth of the jar to keep everything under the brine.

I use BLIS K12 probiotic, great probiotic from New Zealand. The http://blis.co.nz explains that BLIS K12 is for the mouth, first line of defense in the mouth. Mouth is the gateway for harmful organisms that causes lot of illnesses.

Hello, this looks so easy. But i a have a couple of questions, ( I should say a ton of questions, :-) ), i hope you could help me. Do i need to sterilize my jars to ferment?, Do i need to loose the caps frequently, or just let them sit at my counter?. I am totally new in this process, so i am a little bit scare. I just bougth a case of pint mason jars and i do not know how to star lol. Thanks. You and your blog are really helping me in the process.

[…] probiotic. This doesn’t have to be fancy. Probiotics are condiments if you’ve done a fermentation day. Savory scrambled eggs with veggies added, a cup of yogurt fulfill all these requirements and are […]

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